Thales Crawley creating the Hummingbird 3000 prototype
Thales UK are a national partner for our Leaders Award competition which asks pupils aged 3-19 the question “If you were an engineer, what would you do?”. This year Thales UK will be creating 6 prototypes across 5 of their UK sites, in total turning 6 pupils’ ideas submitted to our Leaders Award competition into a working prototypes over the 2024/2025 academic year.
Pupil designer, Alex, will see his engineering idea ‘The Hummingbird 3000’ turned into a reality by Thales Crawley. His idea is a miniature green energy factory which could be easily fitted to the wall or roof of a house, producing enough electricity to power a household.
Introduction to the ProtoTeam
The Thales Crawley prototeam consists of six members, each bringing different skill sets to the table:
- Henry Fuller – Project Manager
- Andrew Lucas – EDM
- Benji Beedles – Engineer
- Isabella Anderson – Engineer
- Matthew Hodges – Engineer
- Alex Carlyn – Engineer
Starting the prototype
First phase will be run using agile methods, to allow for flexibility during the design process. Planned to be run across four sprints. Second Phase will switch to normal waterfall method as activities move towards manufacture. More detailed plans will be developed after receiving training in SCRUM method.
Plan to have regular customer meetings, with updates either every month or every fortnight.
Three in-person visits planned:
- First at the school, focused on allowing the customer to meet the team and review final design of solution.
- Second at Thales site, potentially using COREF labs to provide virtual representation of final solution.
- Third back at school, presenting final solution for user acceptance.
Next steps
We are looking forward to the next update!